Today, we are very proud to release version 1.0 of Shuup open source ecommerce with our new license OSL-3.0.
We’ve been building up to this for a couple of years now and are so excited to share our baby with you!
A lot has changed in Shuup and its related services since our previous open source build, version 0.6.0. If you’ve checked out our code online recently, you may have been wondering what was up with our Open Source version. We intended to keep our intensity as high as possible as we worked up to 1.0, and kept the code hidden until now.
Our team put everything they had into polishing the product for this release: countless, caffeine-fueled all-nighters and a great deal of blood, sweat, and tears.
Now, around 300 commits later (since 0.6.0), we release an e-commerce platform that will blow your mind!
There are just way too many features to go through here, so please visit our changelog for more information. All the necessary links can also be found at the end of this document.
Shuup Open Source License is now OSL-3.0
- This is the same license as used by Magento and Prestashop
- Contributors, partners, and addon creators are encouraged to profit from their creations
Our previous license model received some negative feedback and didn’t encourage the community to contribute to our platform as we’ve hoped. On the other hand, this was good for us as it gave us a clear vision of what we want this platform to become.
Now that we think that we have created the perfect foundation for scalable e-commerce, we made the move to OSL-3.0. The Open Software License 3.0 gives us the perfect mix of freedom and control and is used by other major open source ecommerce platforms.
It does require contributors to use copyleft, but also allows our addon creators the freedom to select their own licenses for their addons. Commercial use, distribution and sub-licensing of Shuup is allowed as long as the source is disclosed and the same license applied.
We really hope that by making Shuup open source under the OSL-3.0 license, we get the community to activate.
The Marketplace
- Fully functional marketplace for addons
- First addon contributions from our community!
- Many in-house addons to be added
Soon:
- Addon developers can sell and charge for their addons
- Addon highlighting and promotions
- Sales reports for addon sellers
Now that Shuup is OSL-3.0 licensed, we predict the community to activate more than ever, and we have prepared our marketplace for this. The marketplace was merely a display for add-ons before. Now, it is possible to register as an addon seller to upload your own addons to be shared in the marketplace. We are thrilled to already have our first contributions and are excited to see more! For added convenience, we are also going to transfer our own in-house add-ons to the marketplace in the near future.
Shuup Marketplace now supports free add-ons only, but Phase 3 on our marketplace development roadmap allows for the selling of add-ons. Phase 3 also includes more tools for addon creators to follow their marketplace sales and to boost them through promotions. Stay tuned for more details by subscribing to our newsletter at https://shuup.com/en/news/join-our-family/.
Cloud
- Cloud is fully enterprise ready!
- All shops to be updated to 1.0 in the next couple days
Our cloud will also get the latest add-ons and is now a full-fledged platform for enterprise level e-commerce. 1.0 will be added to all of our cloud shops and new shops will be opened on top of this updated version in the next couple days.
Documentation
- Fully groomed documentation
- Lot’s of examples of procedures
- Structure updated and layout improved
Shuup documentation was not on the level we wanted it to be. It was missing examples on how to add new features to Shuup and the structure was wrong in many ways. The layout was not in line with other merchant documentation either.
We updated our documentation structure and added examples on how to add new features to Shuup. There will be many more examples coming soon, but for now, we think this is a good starting point. For our new documentation visit http://shuup.readthedocs.io/en/latest/.
Using Shuup for the first time
- Brand new wizard for starting up
- Addon creators can add addon steps to starting wizard!
- Improved home view for important tasks and functions
- Addon creators can add addons to the home view for users
- Brand new guide for home and product views
Shuup merchants were baffled after the first login and usually lost their interest in the product then and there. We addressed these issues by adding a wizard system which provides merchant an easy way to begin using Shuup for the first time.
If you are an addon creator, your addon can also provide new steps to this wizard flow. This way, you ensure your addon can be configured when the shop admin is being fired up for the first time. All payment and shipping methods should include this wizard.
Another problem when starting, was the lack of overall guidelines in admin. We had the merchant guide available for sure, but there was no hand holding. To ensure a better experience for merchants, we added an improved home view. Merchants can always revisit to see that all the important tasks needed to make the shop productive are complete.
Addon creators can now allow their addon to appear on the home view as well.
We also added a guide for home and product views, for when the merchant visits the view for the first time. This guide can be reactivated at any time.
Performance
- Caching has been added for prices reducing bottlenecks
- Active cache — no need for manual re-indexing or purging!
- Much more to come!
Even though Shuup’s performance was good before, we improved it even further. For big enterprise shops, our complex pricing system could become a bottleneck. To resolve this, we added a cache for prices. The duration of this cache can be determined from settings. Unlike some of our competitor platforms, our cache is active, meaning the merchant doesn’t have to do manual re-indexing or cache purging.
While we are now happy with the performance of Shuup 1.0, there are still few issues we have to overcome. They are not critical, but definitely on our roadmap.
Admin
- User flow is now much simpler and tasks have been streamlined
- Simplified product creation
- WYSIWYG editor has been added to all fields for better HTML editability!
- Navigation in admin is improved
- New items can now be added from many different views without navigating to a new page
- List view headers can now be edited
- List views can now include media
- Many elements added to dashboard
The problem with admin was that there was too much “air” around the elements and it was too “roundish”. Admin was also lacking flow. Creating new items was really complex and many of the fields were too confusing.
For the 1.0 release, we spent a lot of time getting the admin to feel more polished, tighter, and effective, if you will. We also simplified new product creation, as it’s something merchants do relatively often. There are way too many features to list here, but you can check our changelog for more detailed information. Or try the admin yourself at our demo page.
Prior to 1.0, text fields in admin supported markdown. This is pretty handy for certain audiences, but we felt that it was too complex for everyday users. We decided to use Summernote (http://summernote.org/) WYSIWYG editor in all fields for better HTML editability.
The admin menu was overhauled to make it easier for merchants to navigate through all the features available in Shuup. We also streamlined adding new items in certain views, like adding a missing coupon for basket campaigns without being required to navigate away from the page.
List view headers can now be edited even further and list views can include media such as images. The dashboard has a lot of new elements as well, including FAQ, news, sales, and more.
Frontend
- Editor view has added features
- Plugin fields can be reordered
- Fully functional one-page checkout!
- Metadata is now available for Category, Product, and CMS pages
Frontend doesn’t have a lot of moving parts that concern us, as themes are pretty much out of our hands. We added some new features to the editor view to ensure the best possible experience for merchants when they want to edit the frontend. It is, for example, now possible to re-order plugin fields.
We also revisited the one-page checkout feature. It is now fully functional and can be enabled through settings.
Metadata was missing from all pages other than product pages. This was fixed by using the description for meta description value. Metadata is now available for Category, Product and CMS pages.
Addons
- Super easy addon installation
- Cloud instances now integrate directly to the addon marketplace
- Addons can be installed straight through admin upload
Soon:
- Direct installation in open source version
Addon installation has been made much easier than before. The cloud version did not have the possibility to install add-ons before. It is now possible as Cloud instances integrate directly to the Marketplace. You can install addons with the push of a button.
In Open Source installations, add-ons can be installed like before, by uploading the addons directly in admin. We are planning on bringing the direct installation to OS versions too.
API
- API is here!!
- API for products, orders, contacts, and much more
- Complex integration possibilities
Shuup was missing key API’s. 1.0 introduces API for Products, Orders, Contacts, and much more. These additions allow for very complex integrations into the Shuup platform. We are very excited to see what the community can create with these newly opened API’s!
Campaigns
- Child products are now automatically included under the same parent category discount
- Complex campaigns are now much easier to create
Campaigns were pretty good and we were happy with all the combinations the merchant could make with our tool. There were, however, a few quality of life improvements we made.
Shops with variation products had a hard time creating campaigns as they had to add the child products to campaigns. With complex variations, this could be a tedious task, so we changed the way the campaigns match. It is now possible to add only the parent to the campaign, and all the children will get the same discount.
Contributing
You can find our contribution guidelines and all important links from https://shuup.com/en/shuup/contribution-guide/
The Future
Shuup development won’t end here!
- More enterprise features such as multi-shop support, recurring orders, more reports, and more
- Shuup enterprise and open source version will use the exact same core!
- All core improvements and bug fixes will be included into the open source version forever!
- Open Source gets the same support from Shuup Core Team as Enterprise
Our core team continues working full-steam with adding new features and addons to Shuup. This includes more enterprise-like features including full Multishop support, recurring orders, better reporting, and more.
The Core Team’s daily activities also include supporting the community by any possible means, going through the GitHub issues for the OS version, etc. So rest assured, the OS version gets all the possible support it needs from our core team.
We already feel that Shuup is the best and most well thought-out platform available, we hope you feel the same way. Together, we can build the ultimate platform for e-commerce. We are excited to see what the community can do with our baby now that it has left the safety of our loving care.
We hope you embrace Shuup and enjoy it as much as we do! Let’s do great things together in 2017!
Important links:
Homepage https://shuup.com
License https://github.com/shuup/shuup/blob/master/LICENSE
GitHub repository https://github.com/shuup/shuup
Changelog for 1.0 https://github.com/shuup/shuup/blob/master/doc/changelog.rst
